


feast after famine

by fizzy_smile



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, LA Era (Crooked Media RPF), M/M, warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23867344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzy_smile/pseuds/fizzy_smile
Summary: feeling accepted and understood like that was perhaps the greatest gift of this friendship.
Relationships: Jon Favreau/Tommy Vietor
Comments: 16
Kudos: 27
Collections: Crooked Exchange 2020





	feast after famine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nervousbakedown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervousbakedown/gifts).

> to my recipient the darling E –- thanks for the bright sparkly energy you bring to this fandom -- you make all this so much fun. 
> 
> thanks to brilliant incredi-betas okaystop and q and egt; i feel truly lucky to get some of your time and expertise.
> 
> keep it secret, keep it safe. and **wash your hands like it’s your job,** which it basically is now.

tommy yanked the borrowed henley over his head, and only absorbed how much it smelled like jon as he pushed the sleeves up. hmm, were his senses somehow improving, post-pandemic? or had being separated for so long just increased how much he noticed his friends? these first few days, he certainly felt like he had double the vision--- he was so alert to the flutter of an eyelash, a new freckle, a tiny familiar hand gesture. like, he had been starving for the company of his friends and now he was getting his fill. 

he couldn’t get enough of touching them, wrangling for a hug, squeezing a shoulder, even lovett’s self-protective bubble of safety seemed to have shrunk somewhat and he allowed himself to be jostled and elbowed and have his hair ruffled. sure, it would wear off at some point, but for now it felt good to tommy to be allowed to express himself nonverbally: “I missed you, and now you’re here, and I can poke you in the ribs to emphasize the teasing I’m doing.”

favs of course, always a hugger and cuddler and easy with physical affection with friends, coworkers, and dogs -– now his world of warmth blanketed everyone who came within his field of vision. stanley, their notably stern & forbidding building manager even allowed him one brief enthusiastic handshake, surprising them all. the 12 weeks of house arrest where he had only emily and leo to love on, and everyone else (even his parents and andy and molly!) had to stay six feet away, it had built up a deep well of un-given touches and strokes and affirmations and gestures that now he was free to spend even more extravagantly than before.

tommy was the main recipient of all this touch, and it seemed that the cavern of need he had developed during confinement was slowly being filled from favs’ seemingly bottomless well. like, typing on their laptops welded at the hip for an hour was barely enough. legs entangled while sitting at opposite ends of the couch during a positioning break was barely enough. would jon object if I sat in his lap, tommy wondered. might it even be reassuring, cozy? 

just for novelty’s sake at one point they tried sitting back to back, which turned out to be easier, more comfortable and comforting than expected. the dogs assumed it was some sort of game and ran in to do laps around the couch. just sitting with jon behind him, spines aligned, so he could feel jon breathe and hear him, yet not see him, was somehow freeing tommy up to be very productive, he registered. being this close to jon was like tapping into a new energy source. 

he fired off emails to ben full of ideas for guests and topics and new ways to engage the worldos and perhaps broaden their listenership. he felt the show could be a vehicle for many more people to learn more about the globe they shared and the countries they were now newly aware of being dependent on and connected to.

decades earlier, before house arrest, one of the listeners had informed him of an apparent “lesbian fan base” which sounded so cool and flattering, and that fan base had expressed an interest in . . . . worldo boot shorts, or short boots, or -- he pulled up the text exchange – booty shorts? He googled it, oh, they were exactly what they sounded like. he typed up a quick list of questions for tanya about seeing if cotton bureau made shorts like that, and ideas for color combinations. would it be funny or corny to make “worldos never sleep” sleepwear? maybe just a baby onesie? 

while sitting back to back, if he and jon each leaned their heads back, they were kind of ear to ear which was very reassuring as well. while taking a break for a minute, looking up at the ceiling. hearing up close the scratchy sound when favs rubbed his cheek was . . . evocative. like musical sandpaper -- sound paper? he wondered.

~~~~  


tommy assumed the intense need to touch and be touched would taper off, or dwindle after the first few days, but 3 weeks into being back to work, he still felt he _needed_ to greet favs first thing with an extended tight squeeze full body hug, breathing him in slowly and deeply, and lovett with a ruffle of the curls and a side-hug shoulder squeeze, and everyone else with a high five. and the same at night, it didn’t feel right to separate from jon until they had another solemnly joyful deep squeeze, rubbing his hand up and down jon’s back while jon kind of cupped his hand over the back of tommy’s head, as they breathed in luxuriantly, and a murmured exchange of “I love you, man.” and in between, all day, to sit close together and eat close together and work on the pod outline side by side on the same laptop. it was comforting and grounding and indicative of normalcy in a way he would never have guessed, pre-pandemic.

~~~~  


it occurred to him that perhaps he had acquired a more lasting kind of touch-starved-ness -- this morning, favs didn’t come in until 11:30 after a dentist appointment. tommy had paced, rambled, fidgeted all over the office and succeeded in camouflaging none of it. the wave of intense relief that hit him like a body blow when he saw jon emerging from the elevator bank (had tommy been whiling away the minutes at the fifth floor lobby window looking out over west hollywood? _possibly_) --- it felt, he thought as he embraced favs tightly, it felt like perhaps something had shifted permanently in his brain.

and as he felt jon exhale leisurely in his arms, smelling faintly of dunkins french vanilla, he noted absently that the relief might also be happening outside his own head.

~~~~  


tommy watched their 3 dogs, always close puppy friends, stick to each other like canine velcro these days. they seemed to move like a single 3 headed animal, never farther than a few inches from each other. only this 3 headed dog, he mused, unlike cerberus, was neither menacing nor snarling nor guarding the portal to hell. no, this trio was a triple-impact cuddlemonster now, their delight and joy amplified after the weeks of isolation, scampering around excitedly all day, tails a-wag.

when separating at the end of the day it took extra coaxing and treats and belly rubs to get the dogs to agree to pull apart, so their humans built in an extra 10 minutes for that nightly process. sometimes they resorted to having a “surprise” guest open the office front door, to see if that distracted one of the dogs enough to be scooped up and run out to the car.

~~~~  


had the months of being apart--- after 15 years of having never been separated for more than a month at a time --- had he and jon been permanently altered? tommy had read about the little orphans in communist-era romania who had literally died from lack of human skin to skin contact – was he experiencing the same thing albeit to a lesser degree? he only _felt_ like he was dying when he didn’t have favs within view. like, that tightness in his chest and immediate drop in serotonin upon parting would probably fade in time, right? 

this needing proximity to jon didn’t really seem to cover the other things he’d been observing too, beyond his warmth and his good familiar smell. the -– he blushed even thinking this to himself—the way he’d been fixated on the droopy plush of favs’ lower lip, how the gold flecks in his doe eyes seemed sparklier, somehow. the impact of his radiant charisma, always something he had been lowkey aware of, but this swell of feeling and attachment and rightness upon experiencing that charisma, this was new. the graceful way his elegant hands moved –- okay, now I’m starting to sound like a hokey romance novel, he told himself, internally rolling his eyes. but it didn’t keep him from cataloging these sensory impressions. 

labeling the – crush, he was calling it to himself – unlocked a stream of new observations and awarenesses. like a radio frequency that was coming in clearer and clearer. having always understood jon’s looks to be one of the least important things about him, he now found himself idly appreciating his profile, his easy magnetic smiles, his close cropped head with faintly greying temples. he kept getting caught, was the thing. he’d cough and look away, and then when he checked back, favs had that placid, sunny smile. as if he could see through tommy, and only the best parts. feeling accepted and understood like that was perhaps the greatest gift of this friendship.

~~~~  


since he never kept anything from her, he brought it up with hanna as soon as he noticed this intensity of feeling. “does it seem like . . . an outsize reaction to having been apart?” he asked her as she sat on his lap on their patio, which was a thing they had always done, and in 2020 had gone from an infrequent casual pleasure to a daily necessity.

“absolutely not, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ve been missing emily and gretchen and elise even more since the all-clear came down --- it’s like, all that missing piled up, somehow? and no amount of contact is enough? when emily & I have been hanging out, we have to be in each other’s space or it feels weird and distant and artificial.”

he nodded. “does it feel – needing the closer proximity – chemical, somehow? like, connected to brain wiring or neural pathways?”

“it definitely does, like it’s not a conscious choice. . . ” she fell silent. shifting in his arms, she tried again, “it’s like a reflex, below consciousness, like magnets snapping together?”

“does it somehow feel like, um . . . “

hanna looked at him, her eyes dark and serious. “yes?”

he closed his eyes, and stammered out “um . . . almost romantic?”

hanna wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed. “you know I trust you, right?”

she felt so good and warm and safe in his arms. “yes”

“and you trust me too, right?” he nodded, his throat tight with love for this amazing woman.

“and what did we always say, about exploring? that as long as we didn’t endanger each other, and always put each other first, and shared all the gory details, that we could handle it? we are in this for the long haul, our grandparents all lived to their nineties – so we can expect the same -- so we’re going to be together for sixty years, and we know we can count on each other.”

they sat for a moment holding each other close, listening to their heartbeats.

hanna murmured into his wavy hair, “so if I told you it’s been feeling faintly . . . sexual with emily, you would _not _surprise me if you told me it’s been feeling kinda romantic with jon”

he chuckled and kissed her temple. “you know me better than I know myself.”

~~~~  


the next night, emily and jon came over for their now-weekly couples’ dinner. as the four of them ate tacos on the couch, tommy took a deep breath, squeezed hanna’s hand and said “um, jon, I’ve been talking with hanna, and . . .um . . .” feeling his face heat up as he faltered.

and jon and emily broke out laughing, hilarious in their joy, and jon chirped, “yeah, and I’ve been talking with emily, and emily’s been talking with hanna . . . . yeah, get over here, you” and they all rearranged themselves so emily and hanna could cuddle on one side of the couch and tommy and jon could sit on the other side. their partners watched as jon took tommy’s face in his hands, brushed their noses together and kissed him softly and tenderly. emily and hanna hugged each other and cooed as the boys grinned shyly at them. foreheads pressed together, flushed and bashful and sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge note of thanks to m/timesinbetween for character notes on one of the less-visible spouses; their story "Save the birds, save the bees" has been a boon to us all. I also owe a huge debt to the best fanfic ever written, "the first move" by sinead, for illustrating tiny shifts in a person’s understanding of their world. thanks to r & k & h who are the best around bar none.


End file.
